Different apparatuses have previously been developed for the purpose of splitting open the heads of livestock animals in order to extract contents from the skull, for example the brain or other head organ.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,105,993 and 4,052,769 teach devices of a type featuring a vertically reciprocal knife or blade that descends downwardly toward a stand on which the head is positioned to effect the splitting operation.
Another type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,673 features a movable bed or head support means indexed through a head-splitting cabinet that features gates that close off the cabinet during the splitting operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,708 teaches another prior art apparatus using a rotary blade positioned over a conveyer which moves multiple heads past the blade on platens that are synchronized to the blade rotation so that the brain and pituitary gland are left intact at notches in the blade periphery.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,653,145 teaches a rotary head splitter in which head trays rotatably move around a hydraulically rotated shaft through loading, head-splitting and discharge stations. A vertically reciprocal blade is respectively carried over each tray and is hydraulically driven toward the tray as it moves through the head-splitting station. Multiple heads are thus moving through the apparatus at any given time, each being loaded by an operator at the loading station and automatically discharged from the machine after splitting.
Applicant has developed an improved rotary head splitter having unique and advantageous features and operational aspects not shown or suggested by the aforementioned prior art.